[News] Dennis Brutus - The Man Who Would Reclaim Sports

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Dennis Brutus 1924-2009


The Man Who Would Reclaim Sports

December 31, 2009 By Dave Zirin
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/23506

It was 1976, and the Summer Olympics in Montreal had improbably 
become ground zero in the struggle against apartheid. Several dozen 
African nations threatened to boycott if the International Olympic 
Committee dared allow South Africa to be a part of the games. 
Montreal's athletic jamboree was in jeopardy and the cause of all the 
tumult, according to Sports Illustrated, was a diminutive South 
African poet the magazine called "the Dark Genius of Dissent." His 
name was Dennis Brutus. Brutus organized entire blocks of the world 
around a simple question: how can the Olympics say they stand for 
"brotherhood" and fair play if apartheid nations could join the 
festivities? It worked. The "Dark Genius" shamed the shameless and 
changed international sports forever. Over the course of decades, as 
a dissident, refugee, and political prisoner, Brutus advanced this 
simple athletic argument. The organizations he founded, the South 
African Sports Association (SASA) in 1958 and its successor, the 
South African Nonracial Olympic Committee, (SANROC) used it to hammer 
critical nails in apartheid's coffin.

For Brutus, this work in the sports world was merely an extension of 
a lifetime organizing for racial and economic justice. His death on 
December 26th after a long bout with cancer has created an 
incalculable void. Not merely because he was beloved as the "singing 
voice of the South African Liberation Movement"; not merely because 
Brutus held a reservoir of political lessons; but because he remained 
a tireless agitator for justice. Days before the recent international 
climate talks in Copenhagen, the ailing Brutus called the proceedings 
a sham, saying, "We are in serious difficulty all over the planet. We 
are going to say to the world: There's too much of profit, too much 
of greed, too much of suffering by the poor. ... The people of the 
planet must be in action."

He also never stopped holding up the dreamy ideals of sport against 
reality's harsh light. Up until the final days of his life, while the 
leaders of South Africa celebrated the coming arrival of the 2010 
World Cup, Brutus was in the streets, protesting the demolition of 
low income housing to make way for soccer's international party. In 
December 2007, he publicly rejected induction in the South African 
Sports Hall of Fame, saying to 1,000 onlookers,

   "Being inducted to a sports hall of fame is an honor under most 
circumstances. In my case the honor is for helping rid South African 
sport of racism, making it open to all. So I cannot be party to an 
event where unapologetic racists are also honored, or to join a hall 
of fame alongside those who flourished under racist sport. Their 
inclusion is a deception because of their unfair advantage, as so 
many talented black athletes were excluded from sport opportunities. 
Moreover, this hall ignores the fact that some sportspersons and 
administrators defended, supported and legitimized apartheid. There 
are indeed some famous South Africans who still belong in a sports 
hall of infamy. They still think they are sports heroes, without 
understanding and making amends for the context in which they became 
so heroic, namely a crime against humanity. So, case closed. It is 
incompatible to have those who championed racist sport alongside its 
genuine victims. It's time-indeed long past time-for sports truth, 
apologies and reconciliation."

I had the privilege to interview Brutus extensively three years ago 
about why he came to see sports as an arena to fight for justice. His 
answer was, I have come to learn, typical Dennis Brutus: refusing to 
be anything less than blunt and provocative. I asked him whether he 
agreed with me that sports could still be a lever to change the 
world. Instead of cheerleading the notion, he said to me,

"My own sense is that sports has less capacity now to change society 
then it had before.  For instance, the degree that sports has become 
commercialized.  The degree that your loyalty is no longer to a club 
like it used to be because guys are bought and sold like so many 
slaves....The other thing that really scares me is the way that sport 
is used to divert people's attention.  Critical political issues in 
their own lives.  Their living conditions.  The Romans used to say 
this is the way to run an empire.  Give them bread give them 
circuses.  Now they don't even give you bread and the circuses are lousy..."

But amidst his critiques, Brutus was never a pessimist, only a 
"critical optimist." How else to explain that in his next breath, he 
also said to me,

"We must however realize that the power and reach of sports is 
undeniable...It's kind of a megaphone.  People will hear [political 
athletes] because their voices are amplified.  Not always in a very 
informed way.  Of course when there are exceptions, it can produce 
magic: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for instance or Muhammad Ali. So it does 
help and they do have that megaphone: but all-important is content. 
All-important is politics. That is decisive."

There are ways to honor Dennis Brutus and his memory. Read aloud his 
poetry at the first opportunity. Keep his words alive to "produce 
magic" for a new generation. Keep fighting for a global justice. And 
keep fighting to reclaim sports. As people are criminalized in 
Vancouver to make way for the 2010 Olympics, as the poor are 
dispossessed in the name of the 2010 World Cup, we should proudly 
claim Dennis's well-worn place at the march, never allowing those in 
power the comfort of indifference. As Dennis said to me when I asked 
him how he could stay so active into his 80s, "This is no time for 
laurels. This is no time for rest."

[To purchase Dennis's brilliant collection, Poetry and Protest, go to 
the below link.

<http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Poetry-and-Protest-A-Dennis-Brutus-Reader>http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Poetry-and-Protest-A-Dennis-Brutus-Reader 


[Dave Zirin is the sports correspondent for the Nation magazine. 
Reach him at <mailto:edgeofsports at gmail.com>edgeofsports at gmail.com]




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